by Helen Gray
He spoke to Toni next. “I’d like to pull you out of there, but that knot on your head and the bruise on your face say I shouldn’t. So just stay still.”
Toni blinked instead of speaking.
Another police car arrived, and the chief pushed to his feet. “I’m afraid to move her,” she heard him tell whoever had arrived. “She’s conscious, so we’ll wait for the ambulance. It should be here in a minute or so.”
As he spoke, Toni heard the distant wail of another siren, and soon the ambulance rolled up next to them. Two EMT’s slid a backboard under the van and carefully eased her onto it. Then they pulled her out into the open air and strapped her onto a gurney.
“This isn’t necessary,” she protested. “And I can’t leave before Kyle gets here.”
“There he comes,” Buck said, nodding toward the parking lot entrance.
Moments later Toni heard running footsteps, and then Kyle’s worried face peered down at her. His expression turned grim as he took in the knot on her head and her bruised and battered face. “Take her on to the clinic,” he said to the EMTs. “I’ve called her mother, and she’s already on her way there to meet the doctor.”
When Toni started to push up onto her elbows, Kyle placed his hands on her shoulders and eased her back down. “No, you’re going to the clinic. Don’t argue. The boys are fine. They’re in my truck where I told them to stay. And your mother will have my hide if you don’t show up there after I’ve called her.”
Faye Nash was a nurse practitioner. Rather than retiring, she had cut back to part-time at the clinic, but her work tended to run to whatever hours she was needed.
Toni eased her pounding head back onto the gurney, no fight left in her. Or answers. She would have to think about everything later.
Within minutes she had been transported to the medical clinic, where her mother met them at the entrance. Faye studied Toni as she walked alongside the gurney into the building. Her expression seemed calm, but Toni knew her mother was upset at seeing her daughter in this condition and knowing someone had done it to her deliberately. Once they were in an examination room, Faye stepped back and watched while Doctor Gaines examined the bump on Toni’s head and her bruised chin, and then taped her ribs. He was a handsome guy who had been two grades ahead of her in high school.
“You may go home, but only if you follow orders,” he pronounced when he finished. “Rest and take the pain medication I’ve prescribed. Thankfully you don’t have a concussion.” He handed Toni the prescription slip.
“I have to go to work in the morning,” she said, hoping the medication would take effect quickly.
He shook his head. “You shouldn’t, but I can see you’re determined. Will you stop by after school and let me take another look at you?”
She gave him a slight nod.
As he stepped away, Faye took his place. “The police are waiting to talk to you, if you’re ready. I’ll keep the boys while Kyle takes you down to the station.”
*
Toni could feel Kyle’s watchful gaze on her during the interview in Buck’s office. She had gone back over her story, relating everything she could remember about what had happened to her, which wasn’t much since the entire incident had been totally unexpected and only lasted less than a minute. The only solid information she could provide was her certainty that her attacker’s voice was that of a man.
“Can you remember anything else at all?” the chief asked when she finished.
“No,” she said, but as the word left her mouth a picture flashed through her mind.
Buck leaned forward on his desk, reading her expression. “What is it?”
“There was a car,” she said slowly. “Just before my head exploded, I noticed a car.”
“Where?”
“Parked over past the sign at the entrance.”
“What kind of car?”
She tried to visualize it, but details were fuzzy. “It had dark tinted windows,” she said, her eyes closing. “It was dark colored. That’s all I can remember.” Her eyes opened.
Buck was writing on a note pad. “Someone must have been waiting for you, and then,” he continued in a muse of speculation, “I can see how he could have rounded the senior citizen building, gotten in that car, and driven away. What do you think he wanted you to keep your mouth shut about?”
“I don’t know.” She started to shake her head, but stopped when it hurt. “Have you spoken to Beatrice Adams? She may have noticed something I didn’t.”
The chief nodded. “I talked to her before she left the school parking lot. She said she saw someone running away from your van, but all she saw was his back as he went around the building. She was more concerned about you. Like you, though, she’s sure it was a man. She says the build and the way the person ran looked and seemed like a man. How well did you know Jake Crawford?” he asked in a sudden change of subject.
“Not personally. I saw him at the store when I shopped there, and he stocked some items that he didn’t normally carry during particular seasons and knew I needed for my classes. But we never spent time in the same social circles.”
“You must know something that just hasn’t registered yet.”
Her brow creased. “Like what?”
Buck shook his head. “I wish I knew.”
“I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.”
“Someone broke into the mortuary last night.”
Toni went silent, shocked at Buck’s abrupt announcement.
“When the mortician arrived this morning, he noticed that the door had been jimmied,” he continued. “Because it was an unnatural death, we sent Jake for an autopsy. The body just arrived back here yesterday afternoon.”
Toni shook her head in bewilderment, even while silently applauding that Buck had seen that there was an autopsy. “What in the world did someone want in a mortuary?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. We can’t find anything missing. But Rob said it looked like Jake’s clothes had been handled. They were bloody, so Rob had stashed them in a back room rather than return them to his family.” Rob Nelson was the owner of the funeral home.
“Someone’s looking for something.”
Kyle’s comment brought Toni’s attention around to him. “I thought he just wanted to shut me up because he thinks I know something. I don’t,” she repeated with emphasis.
“So he was looking for something in Jake’s belongings,” the chief said. “It had to be something small.”
“Small enough to fit in his pants pocket,” Kyle added.
“Do either of you have any ideas what?” Buck asked.
Toni leaned back in the chair, a hand over her forehead. “I can’t think of anything,” she said slowly. “I can’t think, period. My head isn’t pounding as much as it was, but the painkillers are making me fuzzy. Even if they weren’t, nothing about this makes sense to me.”
“She needs to go home,” Kyle said pointedly.
The chief nodded. “Take her home.”
*
Monday morning Toni awoke stiff and sore. She eased out of bed, served bowls of cereal for breakfast, and then did the best she could to cover the garish purple bruises on her forehead and chin with makeup. Once dressed, she and the boys headed to school.
Since she was driving, she held off on taking any pain pills until she reached her room, and then relied on multiple doses to get her through the day. Staff and students alike peppered her with questions about what had happened to her. She tried to explain in a low key manner, but she knew talk was bound to run rampant among the student body—and staff.
After school she reported to the clinic as ordered. Dr. Gaines seemed satisfied that she hadn’t injured herself further and still showed no signs of a concussion. But he cautioned her sternly against strenuous activity.
Tuesday went a little better. Toni could hardly move her right arm without causing wrenching pain in her ribs that thankfully were only badly bruised rather than broken.
Rather than eat in one of their classrooms, she and her science colleague, John Zachary, went to the cafeteria and joined the principal and teachers at the table in the corner reserved for staff who were not on lunch monitoring duty.
“Have you found them?” Ken Douglas asked John.
John, whose large body took up nearly two spaces at the table, shook his head. “Nope.”
“What’s missing?” Rick Montgomery asked. A math teacher, he had been terminated by their former superintendent in an act of personal spite. After the woman was killed, it was learned that she had been embezzling funds from the school and cutting staff and departmental budgets to compensate for the financial shortages. To Toni’s delight, Rick had been rehired this year after the know-it-all who had replaced him resigned.
John grimaced. “I had a dozen digital balances in my classroom. Now I only have four.”
Rick gave him a look of sympathy. “Wish I had some lying around that I could give you.”
“They’re premier Ohaus balances that cost about two hundred fifty dollars each.”
Rick’s study of him became more intent. “Isn’t that an odd thing for students to take?”
John shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“You say eight are missing?”
John shook his head. “No, three got broken, so only five are actually missing. It might seem trivial, but to our department it’s critical. There’s no money left in our budget.”
“And I don’t have any sources for you,” the principal said dejectedly. “Wish I did.”
Rick’s interest had sharpened even more. “Are those the kind of balances that can be used in drug making?”
John’s mouth pursed. “The thought has crossed my mind, but I have no idea who to connect to it.”
“Has anyone heard how Loretta’s doing?” another teacher asked, diverting the subject.
Loretta Mullins, their librarian, had suffered a stroke the first day of school and been flown by helicopter to St. Francis Hospital in Cape Girardeau. So far as Toni knew, she was still there.
Short, overweight, and chronically late for everything, the woman was also a chronic complainer and a gossip. She was due to retire at the end of the next term, but it appeared that retirement might have arrived early. The retired teacher who had been recruited to step in and fill the position until Loretta returned, or the end of the school year, was a definite improvement.
But Loretta had liked Toni and been generous in her support and contributions to the recycling fund raising projects of Toni’s sponsored science club. She felt honor bound to go visit the woman.
“I heard yesterday,” someone interjected, “that she had just been transferred to the nursing home for rehab.”
“Which nursing home?” Toni asked.
“Sunbeam Manor,” the teacher responded, naming a local one.
A teacher picked up a tray and left the table. Others quickly followed. The clock waited for no one.
After school, Toni sent the boys home with John and Jenny Zachary so she could go visit Loretta at the nursing home. The childless couple loved having Gabe and Garrett, and the boys loved being spoiled by them.
Having visited residents with her mother as well as on her own, Sunbeam Manor was a familiar site to Toni. At one time when she was especially tired and frustrated, she had envied retirement, but then had realized that this final phase eventually followed retirement. She had too much of a good life to wish away even one minute of it.
Inside the building, she approached the nurse’s station where Karen Lawson, the physical therapist and a sister to Twila Morgan the reporter, was studying the computer screen before her. As Toni reached the counter, Karen looked up. “Good afternoon,” she said. Her voice sounded weak, and her eyes looked dull and red rimmed. She started to say more, but a hand went over her mouth. She turned away and darted down the hallway toward a door that Toni knew was the entrance to a restroom.
The nurse at the desk by the rear wall stood and came to the counter. “She’s pregnant,” she said quietly. “And sick all the time.”
“I hope she gets to feeling better,” Toni said just as quietly. “Can’t she take some time off?”
The nurse’s mouth tightened. “She doesn’t think she can.”
“Well, good luck talking her into it. Can you tell me where to find Loretta Mullins?”
Once she had the room number, Toni proceeded down the hall to her right, her mental wheels turning.
After all the years Karen had been married to Allen Lawson, she was finally pregnant. Toni remembered hearing that the couple had tried to adopt, but for some reason had given up the effort. This pregnancy must represent a long sought triumph, which made Toni happy for them.
When she entered Loretta’s room, she found the librarian lying on her side, her eyes closed. Toni hesitated, wondering if she should disturb the poor woman, but Loretta evidently sensed her presence and opened her eyes. She blinked, and then produced a lop sided smile.
“Hi,” she said weakly.
“Hi, yourself. How are you doing?”
Loretta worked her mouth around, trying to speak. “Not too good,” she said, her speech slurred.
It hurt to see the woman so ravaged by a stroke. “We miss you.”
Loretta pointed at the chair in the corner of the room. “Sit.”
Toni sat. “Are you getting physical therapy?”
Loretta nodded. “Too soon …to …help.”
Toni took over the talking, bringing Loretta up to date on school news and activities. While she was telling about a new program being implemented in the main office, a young woman she recognized as a nurse’s aide entered the room. She was not in uniform, so she had to be off duty. Her hair was limp and straggly, and her head whipped back and forth in an almost furtive survey of the room. She placed a hand on Loretta’s head. “I hope you’re feeling better. Let me check your pain patch.”
Toni watched the woman, who appeared to be somewhere in her twenties, remove the patch that the doctor had prescribed for Loretta’s pain. She looked at it and walked into the bathroom only about four feet away. Two minutes later she returned, put Loretta’s patch back in place, and left the room.
The girl’s behavior seemed odd. The more Toni thought about it, the more wrong it felt. She stepped out into the hall and spotted a nurse coming out of a room down the hall. She raised a hand in a beckoning gesture.
“Good to see you, Toni,” Nurse Harrison said as she approached. “What can I do for you?”
Toni didn’t speak until the nurse she had known as Charlotte Grandin in high school was near enough to not have their conversation overheard. “I’m not sure. I just wondered if you would clarify something for me.”
Charlotte’s calm expression became curious. “I will if I can.”
Toni related what had just happened. “Is it a normal procedure for an off duty aide to check patients like that?”
As she listened, Charlotte’s expression had morphed from curiosity to consternation. “Which aide was it?” she asked with urgency.
“She wasn’t wearing a uniform and name tag. I should know her, but I can’t come up with a name. She has long reddish hair and wears dark glasses.”
Recognition flashed across Charlotte’s face. “I know who you mean. The director needs to know about this. Come with me.” She spun and headed for the front office, her shoes squeaking on the polished floor. Toni followed.
As soon as the director, a heavyset, balding man approaching retirement, heard the story, he grabbed the phone. “I’m calling the police. You two find the girl.”
They didn’t have to go far. Back in the lobby, Toni looked over into the dining hall where the residents who didn’t require the assistance of aides and ate first were seated around tables for lunch. The aide who had been in Loretta’s room was making her way from patient to patient, removing their patches.
Toni pointed. “There she is.”
Charlotte halted. “Let’s wait for the
police to get her. We’ll guard the doors so she can’t leave. You stay here.” She moved to another doorway.
Only a minute passed before a police car rolled past the plate glass windows along the south wall. Moments later two officers entered. When residents turned to stare, the aide also turned. Spotting the officers, she whirled and ran toward the exit. The director stepped from his office at that moment, so she veered toward the hallway.
The officers broke into a run and caught the off-duty employee halfway down the hall. When they each grabbed one of her arms, she went ballistic, screaming and fighting. “Let me go, you creeps,” she yelled. “Turn me loose.”
Staff members appeared and began hurriedly ushering residents out of the dining hall. Toni watched the officers forcefully restrain the aide and literally drag her back up the hallway and outside to the police car.
When they were gone, Charlotte rejoined Toni.
“What’s in those patches?” Toni asked.
“Morphine.”
“You mean the woman was looking for a fix?” She recalled the unkempt hair and eyes hidden behind dark glasses.
Charlotte nodded. “That’s my guess. I knew Tanya liked to party, but I had no idea she’s an addict. She must have been desperate to find a fix. The little sniffs she could get from those partially used patches wouldn’t help her a whole lot.”
Toni raked her teeth over her lower lip, her fist clenched. “I recognized her from seeing her around, but I can’t think who she is.”
“Sure you can. You know the Sheridan family. Tanya was a kid when you and I graduated.”
Toni made the connection. “Tanya Sheridan. She’s Bonnie Crawford’s much younger sister.”
Charlotte’s head moved sadly back and forth. “That’s right. Poor Bonnie. Her husband gets killed, and now her sister’s arrested.”
Disjoined thoughts chased one another in Toni’s mind. A man was murdered. Digital balances were stolen—balances used in drug making. Bonnie’s sister and drugs. Did drugs have anything to do with Jake’s death?
